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Coaching Philosophy

At the simplest level, my coaching is based on every training run having a specific purpose; when you head out the door each day, you should know exactly what you are trying to accomplish. Most runners tend to settle into what I call “no man’s land,” where their easy runs are too fast and their hard runs are too slow. They believe that to get better, they just need to run more. Instead, I’ll work with you to great faster and stronger using a hard/easy approach.

I emphasize the idea of initially establishing your date training paces that reflect your current fitness. Then we will gradually increase the intensity of each type of training run until you are confident and fit enough to achieve your goal. For runners moving up to ultra distances, I will help make that transition smoother by speeding up the learning process. I learned many lessons the hard way when I moved up to longer events and promised to make that an easier process for you.

I’m also a big proponent of weight lifting and functionally specific strengthening for runners and can help get you started on such a program. My goal is to help you become not just a faster runner but a healthier athlete as well.

As far as overall training cycles, I use an approach called “non-linear periodization,” which differs from the traditional “western periodization” ideas that are more geared towards a particularly short season of goal races. It is one thing if you are a 1500 meter runner training for the Olympic finals and you are devoting two years to that one goal, but for most people, it is more effective to strive for a relatively high level of fitness time. This means you’ll be doing all the key components of training (long slow distance, lactate threshold tempo runs, hill/strength explosive training, and max V02 workouts) at all times during the training. The main difference from week to week, and month to month, would be the relative volume and intensity of each kind of training.

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DeWitt Coaching

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